


All Too Well

by catchawave



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-21
Updated: 2015-06-21
Packaged: 2018-04-05 09:33:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4174857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catchawave/pseuds/catchawave
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She's his sister's annoying best friend and he's her best friend's irritating older brother.<br/>Until, one day, that's not what they are at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Too Well

**Author's Note:**

  * For [megdalenehawthorne](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=megdalenehawthorne).



This is how it starts.

She is fifteen and his little sister’s best friend, and he is seventeen and her best friend’s annoying older brother.

Only, now she’s sixteen and his friend, too, and he is eighteen and the annoying leers of childhood have faded into charming smiles and thinly-veiled flirtation.

“Princess,” he greets her one morning while she waits in the kitchen for his sister to finish showering, leaning  into her personal space.

“Bellamy,” she whines, hands toying with the ends of her scarf, “If you call me that one more time, I swear, I’m going to make you regret ever learning how to talk.”

He lets out a chuckle and leans against the countertop and further into her space.

“And how do you plan to do that?”

She raises an eyebrow in return, “We both know that I could shut you up. _For good_.”

“You could not!”

“Oh, I so could.”

“Prove it.”

She kisses him. Hard.

Her hands wind themselves around his neck, his moving up and down her back before finally settling on twirling her scarf. When they finally break apart, she leans her forehead on his and smirks.

“What?” he says, his eyes dark and voice deep.

“Told you I could shut you up.”

At that precise moment, the bathroom door slammed, and they jump apart, his grasp causing her scarf to be pulled away.

“Don’t tell O,” they say at the same time, staring at each other with wide eyes. She laughs.

“Never.”

“Clarke!” Octavia shouts, bounding into the kitchen, “I hope you weren’t too bored without me!”

(He keeps the scarf.)

***

They go on a date three days after that first kiss. Fast food and  the new _Jurassic World_ movie, which they inevitably argue over, because that’s who they are, that’s what they do.

He drives. On the way back, she’ s in the middle of a long diatribe about how the movie was incredibly sexist—which, _hello_ , it was—when she’s cut off by her own shriek.

“ _Bellamy!_ ” the car jerks to a halt, inches away from the car in front of them, “Oh my god, oh my god—”

“Clarke, it’s fine, we’re okay, we’re fine, see?” he says, looking at her through the corner of his eye, his neck flushed, “we’re fine. Fuck, I’m sorry, that was fucking terrifying—”

The light turns green, and she starts laughing. “We’re fine,” she agrees, nodding her head, “We’re perfectly fine. Just—stop staring at me while you’re driving, okay? I know I’m gorgeous and everything, but I like being gorgeous and alive.”

His neck turns a slightly darker shade of red, “You’re—captivating,” he mumbles. And then, louder, “I like you better gorgeous and alive, too. Still, I’m sorry.”

She laughs again.

(She likes him better gorgeous and alive, too.)

***

They’ve been dating for two months, but no one knows, not even Octavia; they’ve managed to keep it on the super down-low. It’s been all dancing around his kitchen when it’s so late its morning when Clarke stays over to hang out with Octavia.

If Octavia notices that Bellamy seems to laugh a little easier, or that he seems to worry about their mother a little less, or that Clarke has started spending even more time at her house, she doesn’t say anything. Maybe drops a confused look every once in a little why, or asks Clarke a weirdly pointed question and receives an elusive answer, but she doesn’t make any accusations.

Things are good between the two of them, really good, and sometimes, when Clarke thinks about it, she gets an warm, tingling sensation in her chest that feels like she’s going to explode.

(Her brain whispers _love_.)

***

Aurora Blake, prized, semi-alcoholic mother of Bellamy and Octavia Blake, has come to pass. Is dead. _Has died_.

It feels surreal. It can’t possibly be happening—people don’t just _die_ , do they?

Aurora Blake does, apparently.

Octavia Blake deals with the death of her only parent the same way Octavia Blake has dealt with everything in her life: she cracks a few jokes, cries a little in solitude, cracks a few more jokes, and finds solace in her friends. It hurts— _mothers aren’t supposed to leave_ —but she’ll get over it. She _has_ to.

Bellamy Blake is a different story altogether. When emotionally upset, the older Blake has a tendency to lash out, to attack the people around him.

And this might just be the largest blow that has been dealt to him yet in his short, eighteen-year-old lifespan.

Oddly enough, he doesn’t fall apart in the way he normally does. At the funeral, both Bellamy and Octavia cry a little on Clarke’s shoulders. When the casket goes into the ground, Octavia and Bellamy hold each other’s hands the way they did back when he was eight and she was six and they had to cross the street. Only, this time around, Bellamy’s other hand is intertwined with Clarke’s.

Clarke, for her part, rubs their backs and murmurs  into their hair, consoling them the only way she knows how.

 _They’ll get through this. We’ll get through this_ , the Princess thinks.

***

They don’t get through it.

Not as the people they were, at least.

Octavia works through her grief, and Bellamy struggles through his. BellamyandClarke the item, don’t work through anything.

Clarke’s hand is on the doorknob to the Blake residence when it swings open from the inside to reveal one Bellamy Blake, curls wild and purple bags under his eyes.

“Hey!” she says, going to move past him and into the house. He doesn’t budge.

“Clarke.” Her nose scrunches at the smell of whiskey on his breath, eyebrows rising.

“What? What is it?”

“Clarke. We—we need to talk,” his words come out unsteady as he leans backwards, arms folding across his chest, “We can’t do this anymore.”

“What?”

“Us. We can’t do it anymore.” Her brow knits together, her mouth a little open.

“Are—are you breaking up with me? And you’re not even sober.” He says nothing.

“Why?”

“I can’t deal with your whole _thing_ , anymore,” he gestures at her, fingers wiggling in her face, “and I’m going to college in the fall. I’ll have…other options.”

“ _Excuse_ me? My whole ‘thing?’” her fingers form air quotes around his earlier words, “That’s complete bullshit, Bellamy. Complete, utter, _bullshit_. Tell me the real reason right now, or I swear to God—”

He smirks at her, and there is no underlying kindness to it, no sympathy.

“You’ll what, _Princess_? Have me beheaded?” Her mouth flaps up and down, at a complete loss for words. This is the first time in a very long time that he’s used that nickname in such a harsh manner, and it stings.

“Bye, Princess,” and the door starts to close. “Oh,” his voice calls, all sing-song lightness, “And don’t tell Octavia.”

(That warm, fuzzy feeling is gone.)

***

Jake Griffin, beloved father of Clarke Griffin and husband of Abby Griffin, dies when Clarke is seventeen.

Jake Griffin dies for a reason, at least: a drunken asswipe driving on the I-89sideswiped his car and sent the world up in flames.

Abby Griffin deals with it in the only way she knows how: she buries the body and moves on, fixates on something else. In this case, she’s decided that her daughter’s life needs some serious, serious direction.

(These things are best not to think about.)

And Clarke Griffin deals with it by not really dealing with it all.

At the funeral, her mother stands alone, back ramrod straight, eyes straight ahead, white knuckles clutching the stems of red roses. Clarke clings to her best friend’s hand, breathing hard and straight and fast, Octavia running circles around her knuckles.

 _In. Out. In. Out. In,_ the Princess repeats to herself.

***

When Bellamy returns to the (mostly empty) home for the summer, the smell of college and higher education and countless shifts at countless bars clinging to his skin, the two of them have sex.

They’ve had sex with each other before, but this isn’t like any of those other times. It’s never been this _angry_ before, never been about making anyone bleed.

Clarke was spending the night with Octavia, who had passed out sometime after one. Clarke had gotten up to get a drink from the kitchen when Bellamy stumbles, the door clapping shut behind him.

He blinks at her, as if not quite recognizing her; “Oh.”

“Late shift?” She questions, voice quiet in the darkened room.

He nods in response.

And the next thing Clarke knows, she’s pushed up against the kitchen counter, frantically kissing him, his hands pushing down her sleep shorts while she fumbles with his zipper.

It’s hard and it’s fast and it’s dirty; all nails scraping flesh and teeth pulling at lips.

When it’s over, it’s simultaneously the best and worst she’s felt since the death of her dad.

“Fuck,” he whispers after, “I’m so sorry.”

She presses a kiss to his forehead and goes back to Octavia’s bedroom.

(Octavia might not say it, but she’s overjoyed that she’s not alone anymore.)

***

 _You are cordially invited to the union of Octavia Blake and Lincoln Whittler_ ….

Clarke stares at the invitation, the manila cardstock cutting into her hands. She knew Octavia was getting married—they talk at least once a week, even if they do live on opposite sides of the country—but it’s been at least five years since she saw her childhood best friend in person.

(It’s been even longer since she’s seen him.)

***

This is how it ends.

She is fifteen and his little sister’s best friend, and he is seventeen and her best friend’s annoying older brother.

Only, now she is twenty-nine and he is thirty-one and they are childhood friends and some other kind of significant.

She has a glass in her hand, her cheeks flushed from dancing, when she sees him for the first time in twelve years.

He’s across the dance floor, leaning against the bar, his thumb tracing patterns on his own glass, and he is staring straight at her.

And the Princess remembers this, all too well.

**Author's Note:**

> Based on Taylor Swift's song, All Too Well, as brought to me by the lovely bellandclarkey.  
> Let me know what you think!


End file.
